Beyond the Ivory Tower Read Online Free

scent—spicy and woodsy—infiltrated her senses. The warmth of the lightweight wool was nothing compared to the heat of his body. She trembled beneath the weight of his arm, the pressure of his palm, the feel of his solid muscles pressed against her side.
    “Still cold?” He pulled her closer, either not hearing or else ignoring her whispered “No.”
    If he weren’t so stubborn, narcissistic, and just plain wrong, she might have actually enjoyed this whole interlude. Okay, maybe not the part where he’d shot down her proposal. And certainly not his criticism of education—which in her view was a fundamental right, as much a necessity to human life as air and water. In dismissing the entire system of higher education, he might as well have said that Anna herself was irrelevant.
    But at this moment, with his hard body plastered against her, logic was the last thing on her mind. Her stupid hormones were going to town, pumping out adrenaline, jacking up her heart rate, sensitizing her skin, shooting sparks along her nerve endings like fireworks to celebrate the end of a long and lonely dry spell.
    His voice stirred her hair. “Did you drive?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll walk you to your car. Where is it?”
    For a second, she couldn’t remember. Her brain simply shut down, as if finally succumbing to the anxiety and fatigue of nearly two weeks’ worth of sleepless nights. Add to that the long drive up from L.A. earlier today, the packing and unpacking of Klara’s belongings, the stress of confronting Ethan—it was no wonder she was having trouble thinking.
    “Anna.” His thumb stroked her arm, and she felt it all the way down to her core.
    She glanced up. His eyes seemed darker now, gunmetal gray almost entirely swallowed by black pupil. He moved slightly, angling his body toward her, his broad shoulders blocking out her view of the street beyond. She could hear his breathing, feel his heart beating through his chest wall. When had her hand drifted up to rest over the breast pocket of his shirt?
    She parted her lips to say something. This was crazy. She’d just met him. All they’d done was argue. Okay, maybe they’d shared a meal and few confidences, but that didn’t mean they were embarking on anything more. He might be sexy enough to rev up her long-dormant libido and short-circuit her mental processes, but he was also completely wrong for her.
    She wasn’t looking for a one-night stand, and anything more was simply out of the question. Their beliefs were too diametrically opposed. Not to mention the fact that they lived four hundred miles apart. Even if it took only an hour by plane, there was still the hour drive to the airport on each end, and the hour or two it took to get through check-in, security, boarding, and sitting on the tarmac waiting for air traffic control to give the green light. An entire day wasted in transit on a round trip wasn’t something she could afford, at least not on a regular basis.
    And that wasn’t even touching on their difference in status. The U.S. might be a great melting pot, but in reality, net worth separated Americans as effectively as class barriers and ethnicity divided people elsewhere in the world. Anna remembered what it was like when she and her parents had first immigrated from Russia, with nothing but a suitcase each, and a fistful of emergency cash they’d managed to scrape together through a fire sale of everything else they’d owned back in Moscow. These days, Anna felt lucky to be earning a comfortable living, and tenure gave her the kind of job security that few people enjoyed. But there was still a huge gap between not living paycheck to paycheck, and having the kind of wealth that allowed Ethan to drop a million a year on some cockamamie social experiment and call it philanthropy.
    He bent his head toward her. The closer he came, the less it all seemed to matter. Rational thought simply melted away beneath the intensity of his gaze.
    His lips brushed